"If you will come with me, I will take you to a place which no one here knows anything about except papa and me; it is a beach hidden among the rocks; you don't see it until you are on it ... it is a lovely place."

"If I like! you know well enough the love I have for landscapes, and above all for seascapes! How do you get to it?"

"Follow me ... you shall see."

Marta started out toward a clump of pines situated not far from the house, and Ricardo followed her. The girl wore a marine blue dress with white lace tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs, and she had on her head a straw hat with a wreath of red convolvulus.

"After we reach that grove, you are going to enjoy a surprise."

"Indeed?"

"Just wait and see!"

In fact, after they had reached the grove and had been walking some time in it, they came upon a grotto half covered up with trees and underbrush. Marta, without saying a word, entered it, and in two seconds disappeared from sight. Ricardo waited an instant in uncertainty and deep surprise; but a gay peal of laughter echoing from within startled him from his stupor.

"What does this mean? Don't you dare to come in, coward?"

"But, child, don't you see, you might get hurt!"

"Come in, come in, brave warrior!"

"Very well ... seeing that you have set the example."

When he joined Marta, he found that the grotto was quite large and had a sandy floor.

"Oh, I didn't suppose it was so large and comfortable!"

"Good; now follow me."

"Where?"

"How inquisitive you are!... You shall see, man, you shall see for yourself."

She entered further into the cave, which kept growing darker and darker, and Ricardo followed, not taking his eyes from her for fear she should fall or stumble upon some obstacle. After some little time the girl's silhouette vanished in the gloomy depths of the cavern, and Ricardo found himself in real darkness.

"Don't be worried; follow me, and nothing will happen to you. I will be talking all the time, so you can walk in the direction of my voice....

If you want me to give you my hand, I will.... No?... very well, but don't fall far behind.... In a very short time you will begin to descend, but it is a gentle slope.... Do you see?... Don't grumble against the footing.... Still, if one should fall, it would not do much harm.... We shall be in the light soon.... Be careful; turn to the right, for the path here makes a bend.... There, we have light at last!"

A luminous point was, in fact, visible below our young friend's feet a hundred yards distant. Marta's silhouette again emerged from the darkness and stood out against the n.i.g.g.ardly light which entered through the aperture.

A long, dull murmur was audible in the cave, hinting at the proximity of the ocean. In a few moments they came out into the light.

Ricardo was in ecstasies over the sight which met his eyes. They stood facing the sea in the midst of a beach surrounded by very high, jagged crags. It seemed impossible to issue from it without getting wet by the waves, which came in majestic and sonorous, spreading out over its golden sands, festooning them with wreaths of foam. Our young people advanced toward the centre in silence, overcome with emotion, watching that mysterious retreat of the ocean, which seemed like a lovely hidden trysting-place where he came to tell his deepest secrets to the earth.

The sky of the clearest azure reflected on the sandy floor which sloped toward the sea with a gentle incline; months and years often pa.s.sed without the foot of man leaving its imprint upon it. The lofty, black, eroded walls, shutting in the beach with their semicircle, threw a melancholy silence upon it; only the cry of some sea-bird flitting from one crag to another, disturbed the eternal, mysterious monologue of the ocean.

Ricardo and Marta continued slowly drawing nearer the water, still under the spell of reverence and admiration. As they advanced, the sand grew smoother and smoother; the prints of their feet immediately filled with water. Coming still nearer, they noticed that the waves increased, and that their curling volutes at the moment of breaking would cover them up if they could get them in their power. They came in toward them solid, stately, imposing, as though they were certain to carry them off and bury them forever amid their folds; but five or six yards away they fell to the ground, expressing their disappointment with a tremendous, prolonged roar; the torrents of foam which issued from their destruction came spreading up and leaping on the sand to kiss their feet.

After considerable time of silent contemplation, Marta began to feel disturbed; she imagined that she noticed in them a constantly increasing desire to get hold of her, and that they expressed their longing with angry, desperate cries. She stepped back a little and seized Ricardo's hand, without confessing to him the foolish fear that had taken possession of her; she imagined that the sheet of foam sent up by the waves, instead of kissing her feet, was trying to bite them; that as it gathered itself up again with gigantic eagerness, it attracted her against her will, to carry her away no one knows whither.

"Doesn't it seem to you that we are going too close to the waves, Ricardo?"

"Do you think perhaps they'll come up as far as where you are?"

"I don't know ... but it seems to me as though we were sliding down insensibly ... and that they would get hold of us at last."

"Don't you be alarmed, preciosa," said he, throwing his arm around her shoulder and gently drawing her to him; "neither are the waves coming up to us, nor are we going down to them.... Are you afraid to die?"

"Oh, no, not now!" exclaimed the girl, in a voice scarcely audible, and pressing closer to her friend.

Ricardo did not hear this exclamation; he was attentively watching the pa.s.sage of a steamboat which was pa.s.sing down the horizon, belching forth its black column of smoke.

After a time he felt like renewing the theme.

"Are you really afraid of death? Oh, you are well off.... To-day the world has in store for you its most seductive smiles ... not a single cloud obscures the heaven of your life. G.o.d grant you may never come to desire it!"

"And are you afraid to die? tell me!"

"Sometimes I am, and sometimes I am not."

"At this moment are you?"

"Oh! how funny you are!" exclaimed the young fellow, turning his smiling face towards her. "No, not at this moment, certainly not."

"Why not?"

"Because, if the sea should carry us away, we two should die together; and going in such charming company, what would it matter to me leaving this world?"

The girl looked at him steadily for a moment. Over the young man's lips hovered a gallant but somewhat condescending smile. She abruptly tore herself from him, and turning her back, began to walk up and down on the beach skirting the dominions of the waves.

The steamship was just hiding behind one of the headlands like a fantastic warrior, walking through the water until only the plume of his helmet was visible. When it had disappeared, Ricardo joined his future sister, who seemed not to notice his presence, so absorbed was she in contemplation of the ocean; yet after a moment she suddenly turned around, and said,--

"Do you dare to go with me to the point which extends out there at the right?"

"I have no objection, but I warn you that it's flood tide, and that that point will be surrounded by water before the end of an hour."

"No matter; we have time enough to go to it."

Leaping and balancing over the rocks along the sh.o.r.e, which were full of pools and lined with seaweed, whereon they ran great risk of slipping, they reached the point far out in the sea.

"Let us sit down," said Marta. "Sometimes the sea comes up as far as this, doesn't it?"

Ricardo sat beside her, and both looked at the humid plain extending at their feet. Near them it was dark green in color; farther away it was blue; then in the centre the great silvery spot was still resplendent with vivid scintillations reflecting the fiery disk of the sun. From the liquid bosom of the boundless deep arose a solemn but seductive music, which began to sound like a paternal caress in the ears of our young friends. The great desert of water sang and vibrated in its s.p.a.ces like the eternal instrument of the Creator. The breeze coming from the waves brought a refreshing coolness to their temples and cheeks; it was a keen, powerful breath, swelling their hearts and filling them with vague, exalted feelings.

Neither of them spoke. They enjoyed the contemplation of ocean's majesty and grandeur, with a humble sense of their own insignificance, and with a vague longing to share in its divine, immortal power. Their eyes followed again and again unweariedly along the fluctuating line of the horizon which revealed to them other s.p.a.ces, endless and luminous.

Without noticing it, by an instinctive movement they had again drawn nearer to each other as though they had some fear of the monster roaring at their feet. Ricardo had laid one arm around the young girl's waist, and held her gently as if to defend her from some danger.

At the end of a long time, Marta turned her kindled face toward him and said, with trembling voice,--

"Ricardo, will you let me lean my head on your breast? I feel like weeping!"